Electronic Revolution for warfare: We are linked and hostile

Today, for the multiple media overlapping in the convenient computer unit, these are times of Information Warfare. Summarizing, those who had the best information the fastest were able to act, the soonest were victors in battle.

The definition for Information Warfare (IW) is intentionally broad, embracing organizational levels, people and capabilities. It allows room for governments, cartels, corporate, hacktivists, terrorists, other groups and individuals to have a part.

Although the Internet touches many critical infrastructures and these in turn affect Information Environments (IE) with which we interface, most of the Information Warfare areas were around before the Internet.

In times of net espionage, hackers and software bugs, Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, written some 2500 years ago, remains as a timeless classic - the basis for almost every military doctrine. Certainly, nowadays technology provides more resources to manipulate information in a shorter period of time. Again, the current scenario in the dynamics of Balance of Power is that of nations, enterprises and individuals relying on the electronic revolution resources in order to apply warfare strategies.

The presence of an extensive Information Warfare atmosphere is fundamental to both business and government. Protecting and enhancing capabilities in the Information Environment is vital to achieving objectives and to attain and maintain competitive advantage. This reality is not restricted to using computers to attack computers.

Information Warfare is not confined to a cyber realm. “Virtual” means also electronic radio frequency (RF), and photonic manipulation and conducting physical and virtual operations in a synchronized and coherent fashion. The United States Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated terms provides an accurate evaluation of IW and its related processes:

Information Warfare (IW) - information operations conducted during time of crisis or conflict to achieve or promote specific objectives over a specific adversary or adversaries.

Information Environment (IE) - the aggregate of individuals, organizations or systems that collect process or disseminate information; also included the information itself.

Information-Based Processes - process that collect, analyze and disseminate information using any medium or form. These processes may be stand-alone processes or sub-processes that together, compromise a larger system or systems of processes.

The Electronic Revolution forced nation-states, organizations and world society to reinvent their Information Warfare arrangements. A comprehensive model for a current Information Environment can better illustrate the components of information-related operations in a macro level.

Information moves across information infrastructures in support of information-based processes. Information infrastructure is the media within which we display, store, process and transmit information, such as computers, fiber-optic cables, lasers, telephones, satellites and certainly people.

Now, a modern nation-state and its society are in an information-based and information dependent period. Nations are more than ever relying on a set of information systems and networks to function.

More than physical structures, they need elements to transmit, store, process and display data, images and voice. To date, at least 53 countries, including the United States, Canada, most European countries, a number of African and South American countries and a large proportion of the countries in the Pacific Rim, have identified that they have a National Information Infrastructure (NII).

It seems we are linked, though increasingly hostile.